PAFF 6351 Introduction to Community Development
This course provides a critical analysis of how community-government relations influence the achievement of both governmental and community goals and aspirations. The course focuses on how different approaches such as sustainability, active public participation, grassroots organizing, top-down vs. bottom-up development, and environmental justice have become key in defining what the concepts of community and development mean, as well as in better understanding how community development expresses itself in the 21st century. The course presents issue-based, interdisciplinary approaches by converging perspectives of community development from public policy, community psychology, land use planning, environmental social science, sociology, and anthropology, as well as the non-scientific knowledge of community members, organizers, and innovators to help the student developing a convergent vision of the concept and recognizing the plurality of contributions made to its formation by different disciplines.
Offered
As scheduled